pioneer weekend

i had lots of little happy moments this past weekend, but i was enjoying them too much to stop to blog. one happy thing was that i finished a big step in my surprise quilt (woo hoo!) and the rest should go much more quickly. maybe i’ll get to show it to you before the end of summer! let’s check my camera and see if i caught any other happy moments:

oh yeah! my fabric for my second quilt square in the common threads exchange showed up. what fun fabric! i’ve got a good idea brewing for this one…

this was a great sandwich. avocado, turkey, havarti, spinach, sliced cucumbers and a little black pepper all on a slice of homemade bread. i had forgotten how much i liked cucumbers on sandwiches–yummy crunch! loved the side of fresh peas too. hooray for early summer!

another delicious sandwich. i cooked a chicken this weekend. every 2 months or so, i throw a chicken in the crockpot (sometimes i bake it in the oven, sometimes i just cook it on the stove, whatever’s convenient) and when it’s cooked and cooled, i pick the meat off the bones, portion it into snack-size baggies, then freeze it for easy use in soups and casseroles. this particular chicken was from ruegsegger’s and …. wow. i’m pretty sure mr. happy stuff got sick of hearing about how great this chicken was. i got sooooooo much meat from that one bird! there was meat between the ribs! even the back ribs! when i got done bagging it (i think there were 10 bags. normally, i get 6-8), there was a little left that i didn’t really want to squeeze into another bag and it wasn’t enough for its own bag so… i decided to make some awesome chicken salad. oh man. chopped the chicken up even more fine, added some celery, grapes, chopped pecans, chives and a generous dollop of mayo and…. oh, yum. and more peas and some early beets i picked up at the farmer’s market this week and quick-pickled (so easy. and sooooo much better than the grocery store variety of pickled beets). as you can see, i couldn’t even wait until i’d photographed it to start in on this sandwich.

*for more of my favorite summertime sandwich recipes, see this post from the archives*

what else is on the camera?

strawberry shortcake! i went strawberry picking twice this past weekend and i couldn’t resist this recipe, so… despite the lack of whipped cream, it was delicious. and also made a good breakfast with milk poured over it. and might (just might) be the reason i gained two pounds this week. luckily, i biked to work today!

so in addition to picking and processing 15 pounds of strawberries (we’re trying them simply chopped and sugared this year instead of going the jam or whole-berry route. i think it will work better for us.) and pickling beets and cooking and picking an enormous chicken and then cooking all of the bones and scraps into some beautiful chicken broth (and then freezing everything except the beets), i also got some quilting done and boy do i feel like a wholesome pioneer.

mr. happy stuff snapped this super cute picture of a happy kitty. doesn’t she just make you want to smile?

p.s. one more food note– tonight i made sesame noodles from this super easy recipe. we didn’t have
red peppers, so i just used the veggies we had on hand–broccoli, green onions, garlic scapes, carrots and a generous handful of spinach. i also used natural peanut butter and i was worried that it wouldn’t work, but it worked beautifully. either i was really hungry, or this recipe was really very good. i’ve had good luck with most of the recipes from this magazine and i love their cookbook. i think this particular recipe might be a keeper. we’ll see how the leftovers taste!